I've seen no real evidence that any substantial amount of GOPers in Congress are yet desperate enought to stand up to Bush. If history has shown us anything, there will be a group that makes lots of noise, then is summoned to the WH, and eventually votes with Bush. A year from now it might be different, and I'd like to be proved wrong now, but I wouldn't bet a nickle on it.
Posted by T2 at May 1, 2007 08:28 AMJuan Cole, even more eloquent than usual, on George Tenet:
Quote: The French call it "the spirit of the staircase" (l'esprit d'escalier), the clever reply to someone that comes to you on your way up to the bedroom after a cocktail party. In his new book, released Monday, former CIA Director George Tenet has delivered himself of hundreds of pages on the staircase, imagining what he should have said or could have said to Richard Perle, Dick Cheney, Condi Rice and the other neoconservatives who marched the country to war in Iraq using the pretext of Sept. 11. In his April 29 interview with "60 Minutes" touting the book, Tenet came across as a spectacularly tragic Walter Mitty, daydreaming about how things would have been different if only he had spoken up, if he'd only been a James Bond-style spymaster instead of a timid, fawning bureaucrat. But of course, when it really mattered, at the critical juncture of his seven-year tenure as CIA chief, Tenet said nothing.
Posted by Don Bacon at May 1, 2007 08:45 AMVenezuela was also named today as a state on the "Piracy Watch List" along with other long-term IP violators like China, Russia, India, Lebanon, Argentina, Chile & Ukraine.
Israel's on it too. Whodathunk?
Look at the full list - including the other 'low-level' threats: Belarus, Belize, Bolivia, Brazil, Canada, Colombia, Costa Rica, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Guatemala, Hungary, Indonesia, Italy, Jamaica, South Korea, Kuwait, Lithuania, Malaysia, Mexico, Pakistan, Peru, Philippines, Poland, Romania, Saudi Arabia, Taiwan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan and Vietnam.
Posted by idiosynchronic at May 1, 2007 09:38 AMOwen West’s Op-Ed in the NYT today, calling for an agreement whereby Congress accepts a residual force of about 75,000 troops in Iraq by the end of 2008 in a law enforcement advisory role, while Iraqi forces bulk up to take the lead in security sounds great – and out of touch with reality.
Yes, it is out of touch with reality.
In May, 2003 you could have quelled the rebellion with solid policing combined with a quick restoration of basic services. You might even have done the same in August, 2003.
However the past 4 years of rebellion and civil war has been combined with a) the establishment of many legitimate local ad-hoc governments, who provide real services in addition to the constant warring, and b) occupation policies which have completely antagonized the local population.
Therefore, brokering peace means recognizing the various local players and opening up diplomatic relations.
Failure to do this means any Iraqi police force you try to create with meet with the same fate as all the previous failed attempts: some will join just to get arms, then leave; many will be killed en masse by rebels; and those who stay will rightly be seen by the rest of the population as undisciplined, violent partisans of one sect.
You need to first get the large majority of the populace to buy into the new order, and that means diplomacy (a word that is not in the vocabulary of the neocon or the Bush Cultist).
Posted by anony at May 1, 2007 09:45 AMLance Corporal Bishop won't be available for the Iraqi residual force, thank you very much. Maybe Owen West can take his place.
04/25/07 BY TERI BURTON, THE DICKSON HERALD
He was everybody’s protector; their hero and he wanted to start his own family. But the war in Iraq put an abrupt end to those plans for Marine Lance Cpl. Jeffrey Adam Bishop of Dickson.
The 23-year-old Marine was on his third tour of duty when he was shot to death by hostile fire Friday in Falluja, Iraq, a city in the Iraqi province of Al Anbar, located roughly 43 miles west of Baghdad on the Euphrates River, where he was serving as a police sergeant at a base camp.
“He was behind a desk working on the base when he was hit,” said his mother, Birdie Bishop, adding that her son was formerly a scout sniper. “This was his third time over there and we thought he was safe because he wasn’t out patrolling anymore.”
Bishop joined the Marine Corps through the delayed entry program in September 2002. He “went active” in 2003 and went to Afghanistan “right out of boot camp,” his mother said.
“Oh, we were so proud of him,” she said. “He was always the leader. He was the top of his class in everything he did.” She said her son was active in virtually every sport, including high school football.
“He was beautiful, he was my baby,” she said. “I’ve got plaques…he excelled in everything he did.” She said her son came home from his first assignment in Iraq in March 2006 and left again for his second tour there in December.
“He always said he would protect us, that nobody would ever hurt us,” said his older sister, Wendy Stewart, as she recalled the memories of her little brother. “He was the kind that would always come to your rescue.” She said she is expecting a child soon and plans to name the baby after her brother.“He was like that with everybody,” said his wife, Emma.
“His nieces and nephews adored him,” said Bishop’s sister-in-law, Tina Hagewood. “The older nephews looked up to him as a role model. They loved him. They cherished him.”
Military officials said yesterday that the fallen Marine was expected to be home today. Bishop, the youngest of six children born to Birdie and the late Gray Bishop, was a 2002 graduate of Dickson County High School where he played football and other sports. In November 2006 he married his high school friend, Emma Katherine Peery of Dickson, who graduated from DCHS in 2004 and is currently in her junior year at Lipscomb University.
“We were just friends in high school and we just had this connection and we were close to each other always,” Emma said. “I guess just from the moment he came home from Afghanistan we knew we wanted to be together. We kind of waited for each other, like our moment was never right.” But when the moment was finally right the couple began planning their future together.
“We were planning our life together and we would talk on the phone for hours about everything,” Emma said. “We wanted to start a family, we wanted to get through my schooling so we could hurry up and start a family. Emma said her husband was slated to come home from his current tour in July. “At first it was to be June but it got pushed back to July,” she said.
Posted by Don Bacon at May 1, 2007 09:47 AMI don't get it, Tenet can write his book on when he served but Plame can't.
IMO, we need to follow Chavez's example and Nationalize our Oil companies as well. Among other things.
7of6. our Oil Companies are Nationalized......its called GOP.
Posted by T2 at May 1, 2007 11:55 AMThank-you Don Bacon for posting that touching tribute about Marine Lance Cpl. Jeffrey Adam Bishop of Dickson.
Regardless of how much Tenet and Powell and others protest or the loyal Bushies deny, all bear responsibility for their cowardice and malfeasance.
Posted by JerseyMissouri at May 1, 2007 02:04 PM